


PowerCut

by executrix



Category: Blakes7
Genre: AU, M/M, Pre-TWB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:29:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Pre-series) Roj Blake is carrying out a Freedom Party mission. It's just another day in Dome for Vila.</p>
            </blockquote>





	PowerCut

I think they call it Black Watch--that ugly tartan of blue and green with screeching red threading through it. You wouldn't think that just putting down an empty suitcase and walking away would make your heart pound and the sweat bead up on your forehead, would you? Of course, the really difficult part was looking casual. Don't bother looking at ME, you have to say to the world. Why should you, when I'm not up to anything? Not me.

One of the comrades in our cell is an actress. She'd give us long lists of things to think about. You had to pretend that there was something in the suitcase. It helped to make up a story about it. Was it light or heavy? Why were you traveling at all--did you have an InterCity Travel Document because your mother was ill? Then you'd best not skip down the street whistling a tune. If you'd been reassigned to a new job, and you were--or were pretending to be--a Labour Grade, then that suitcase might hold everything you owned in the world. How did you feel about that job?

What it was all in aid of, was to make yourself invisible, and you had to make the suitcase invisible too, until its moment in the limelight.

I got off the tram and walked a few blocks to the High Street. There was a good spot in front of the newsagents', halfway between the betting shop and the chippie. There was a rubbish bin in front of the newsagents'. The streetlamp was a few meters away. I could pretend to stretch my aching shoulders and put down the suitcase just for a moment, leaning it against the rubbish bin while I scanned the cards in the newsagents' window. Then I could walk away, "forgetting" the suitcase. Then all I'd have to do would be to walk over to the Comm kiosk (Comrade Palkou reported that it was working yesterday, not that that was a guarantee of course). Call Area Security. Report the suspicious item, using my carefully schooled neutral accent. ("Don't talk posh, Roj," Comrade Luisa kept saying.) Then get on the tram back home and know that the district would be in an uproar for hours. Not that anything would make the news reports, of course.

We were having a competition for Rabbles (that's a Party Political Platform of exactly one hundred words), so I thought about my entry while I waited. It's not much of a competition--Comrade Foster buys the winner a pint--but it's about the only time he ever does buy anyone a drink, so I was keen to win.

It was all going fine, until a boy--no, a young man, perhaps a couple of years younger than me--melted out of his own pretense of invisibility. And then, can you credit it, he picked up the bloody suitcase and sauntered off with it. I was simply gobsmacked. I went after him, tapped him on the shoulder, and jerked my head to indicate a nearby doorway. "Oi!" I said, quietly but with all the urgency I could put into it. "What d'you think you're doing?"

He looked me up and down--at first I just thought it was to see if I was a rozzer--and then said "Stealing it, what does it look like?"

"Well, you can't," I said.

"Just did, mate," he said, but my hand was clamped on his shoulder.

"Someone very important needs it to be there."

"Who? You? You an' whose army?"

"The Freedom Party."

His eyebrows quirked up toward his fair-ish hair. "Do you mean to tell me that you've put a bomb in there? Let me out of here!" He tried to twist away, but of course I was more determined as well as bigger than he was.

"No," I explained as patiently as I could. "Of course there isn't a bomb in there. No matter what nonsense they've dinned into your ears, the Freedom Party is a peaceful organization."

"Right. So why do you lot want to leave around things that aren't bombs?"

"Because they look like bombs, of course. And cause disruption, which in turn ties up government resources and increases the discontent of the populace."

Before I had a chance to finish persuading him, just all of a clap the lights went out. It was getting on toward dusk, so the absence of the lights was very striking.

Of course, I'd no idea how far it extended. I didn't know if it was just a tree branch downed on a powerline, or the last unwise move of a hungry (and now fried) squirrel, or a minor software fault affecting only part of a district. But of course I thought that The Day had come. And my first thought was...the buggers! They didn't tell me! I was going mad trying to figure out what to do. Then a dirty great lorry full of soldiers drove past. One bloke had a loud-hailer and another one had a searchlight. The one with the loud-hailer said that Dome-wide curfew had been imposed, starting immediately, and in thirty minutes they'd be making another street sweep and were authorized to shoot on sight. I hadn't a cat's chance in hell of getting back home by then, even under normal circumstances. I supposed I could make a run for it, but what would be the sense of that, getting shot down in the street to no purpose? Dying or getting hurt in a pitched battle or even a small-group action is all very well, but not a wretched mess like that.

"Come along then," he said. "I know a place nearby, we can get off the street. A mate of mine's gaff."

I didn't have a better idea, so I was perfectly satisfied to Take Direction From the Proletariat. (That's Point Eleven of the Freedom Party Manifesto, in case you didn't know.) It wasn't quite dark yet, and here and there a light still shone--someone must have had a generator working, so it wasn't entirely impossible to navigate through the streets. My new friend--"My name's R.....Richard," I said. "That so?" he said. "In that case, my name's Victor."--led me to a tower block.

There must have been a waste dump nearby--several people had scavenged oil drums. A couple of them had turned them into drums, and were plinking away at a popular tune. Someone else had turned a drum into a portable stove and was selling fried-fish sandwiches. I had some small change in my pocket so I bought a couple for us.

"Seems a rapid response," I said.

"Oh, round here, the power's off as much as it's on, so we learn to adapt." In fact, in the lobby of the tower block, someone had set up a kerosene lantern, and there was a big basket of half-burned candle ends. Victor dipped one of the candle ends into the lantern, held up the candle, and motioned for me to follow. I realized that I was carrying a pocketknife with a small pencil torch, so I contributed what light I could.

We walked up ten flights of stairs--there were quite a few people in the stairwell, courting couples and worse, I suppose--and were quite winded when we arrived. Victor handed me the candle stub, stood in front of the door for a moment, said, "I don't see why he bothers, honestly," and opened the door.

I could see right away it was a K-237-19-B Delta housing unit, I'd seen the blueholos in Mass Architecture last term. One room, with a plumbing stack at the rear wall, with a sanitary cubicle and an efficiency kitchen unit with a two-ring hob, small sink, and six-cubic-foot cooler built in. Victor homed right in on the cooler and pulled out three bottles of lager. "Might as well have 'em when they're still cold," and I remembered the Labour Grades' curious taste for ice-cold beer. From time to time, a searchlight would rip through the darkness, and the military vehicle below would repeat that the Dome was under curfew.

There was one chair (it's supplied with the K-239-19-B) but nothing else to sit on except the bed, which was unmade. There was a thin blanket that was, in all probability, blue. It's as well that the candle was guttering out, I shouldn't like to be answerable for the condition of the sheets. So we sat on the bed, and measured out the last inch of candle eating fish sandwiches and drinking.

Victor bent down to unfasten his boots. He lay down on the narrow bed, and pulled the top sheet and blanket up. I took my boots off as well, but it was bloody cold in there, I didn't take anything else off. Either the heating was electric, more likely electrically controlled--or, most likely, heating the place wasn't a high priority for the Dome Labour Grades Housing Authority in the first place.

"Coupla gingers, a bed, a dark night, and nowt else to do," he said as I slid beneath the blanket. "Unless you'd rather swap yarns, of course."

"I'm not..." I began, then said, "How did you know?"

"It's all right," he said. "*I* knew but I expect you pass perfectly well." He moved closer to me, threw one arm around me, and snuggled his head against my shoulder. He was solidly made, and he was one of those people who radiate warmth--speaking physically now, I don't mean to imply any spiritual mumbo-jumbo. For a moment we stayed like that, and I was curiously content. I didn't have to go anywhere and do anything, in fact there was nowhere I could go for the time being. I wasn't hungry or thirsty and although I was hardly drunk on a bottle of lager, the painful edge had been taken off my sobriety.

We hitched around a bit, getting comfortable, exploring the contours, and soon he occupied the center of the bed, and I lay on top of him. He got two good handfuls of my arse, we ground together until we were good and hard, and he surprised me by tilting his face up and kissing me. We shifted, side by side, him on top, tongues in mouths or licking, nipping at our necks, me back on top again.

"That's nice," Victor said. "Like a pasty. Me the tatties and the chopped meat, you the pastry fitting over all round."

I reached my hand beneath his jacket, into his shirt, and rubbed along the warm smooth skin and soft hair until I found a nipple. He gasped and pushed against me harder. "That's right," he said. "Like that. Real dirty." So I reached down further and undid his flies . This time the gasp was louder and almost liquid and I barely had time to get acquainted with the lay of the land. A few hard strokes with my hand good and full and he dug his fingers into my shoulders and he came, feeling that sticky silk showering my hand nearly brought me off as well. He was almost sobbing and I held him until his breath normalized. I moved my hips a little, prodding him with the evidence. He took a deep breath, dived under the blanket, and turned round.

A searchlight swept past.

There was a moment when, blanket or no, dammit it was cold once my pants and trousers were opened ("You don't get many of those to the pound, missus," he said approvingly) but just a moment before I was sunk in a hot waterfall. And then just a little after that the stress of the mission must have caught up with me and I was asleep.

A few hours later I woke up, did up my clothing, and sat up. In the small room it was easy enough to see I was alone--the curtain to the Sani was open, so I could see Victor wasn't there. I could see--it was nowhere near dawn, but the lights had come back on.

I patted my pocket. The wallet was still there, but when I looked inside it was 20 credits light. Well, fair dos, I suppose. I'd meant to give him something to buy his Mum a new hat, anyroad. It probably wouldn't have been 20, though...I smiled. I realized that after a few days the scale of my projected generosity would increase, until I'd practically convince myself that I was going to set him up in a bijou flat. And a few weeks after that I'd've forgotten the whole thing.

The emergency was over, but it was well into ordinary Curfew hours. I thought that most of the Patrols would be concentrated in the business districts to prevent looting, and it might be an acceptable risk to head back home and hope that no one noticed I'd been gone.

I hoisted the suitcase, grateful that at least it was light, and completed the mission. There was an all-night caff open half a kilometer away, so I could make the report. For only a little more than the price of my mug of tea, they sold me a slug of vile brandy, and I could hear a remarkable variety of rumors about what caused the blackout.

The trams started to run again, and I had the rare pleasure of glancing over my shoulder--as the tram pulled out--and seeing a squad of troopers converge on the abandoned empty case.

CODA

I don't like to sleep in the same bed with anybody else, even if it's a nicer one than my old mate Revkoi's crib. And I knew it wouldn't be far to go to find a card game, and candlelight is so nice and romantic and nobody can see the state of your sleeves. By myself I wouldn't have had enough cash to get into an interesting game, but as it happened my new mate was having a bit of kip, so I let him put up a stake for me.

I was whistling when I got back after the game--fifty credits in hand--but he was gone and didn't leave a forwarding address so I couldn't share out with him, had to keep it all for myself.

I like girls better but what can you do? They've never got any dosh. So as it stood, I ended up with fifty credits for having a wank. Do it lots of times myself for nothing.


End file.
